Castillo-Alvarez sentencing delayed

(Photo by Randy Cauthron) Clay County Deputies transport Juan Humberto Castillo-Alvarez, on Jan. 25, to the Palo Alto County Courthouse for verdicts on three charges. The former Estherville restaurant owner was implicated in the disappearance and death of Gregory Sky Erickson in 1997.

Conflicts in an attorney's schedule will delay the sentencing in a high-profile murder and kidnapping case.

Judge Don Courtney in January returned a verdict convicting longtime fugitive Juan Humberto Castillo-Alvarez of second-degree murder, second-degree kidnapping and conspiracy to commit a forcible felony.

Sentencing was originally set for March 4 at the Clay County Courthouse in Spencer. Castillo-Alvarez will be sentenced at 10 a.m. Friday, April 25, instead. The proceeding will remain in Spencer.

Evidence in Castillo-Alvarez's bench trial was presented over parts of three days on Sept. 18, 19 and 21. Courtney said, in his January 25, verdict that Castillo-Alvarez "acted in concert with others and while acting in concert with others he participated in a public offense," referring to the abduction of Erickson.

"Participant Luis Lua in the furtherance of the kidnapping knowingly committed a different crime, the murder of Gregory Sky Erickson," Courtney also said in his ruling. "The court concludes that Gregory Sky Erickson's murder was reasonably foreseeable."

Under the direction of Lua, who was 21 at the time, members of the gang assaulted and abducted Erickson in Spencer on June 6, 1997. Lua and others rendezvoused in Estherville, stopped at Fort Defiance State Park, continued to a location near Swan Lake north of Superior then went to an abandoned farmhouse in Jackson County, Minn.

The body was found less than two miles from the Iowa border on June 14, 1997. Ten people ranging in age from 16 to 27 were charged with varying roles in Sky Erickson's death. Investigators think a drug debt or Erickson's role as a police informant factored into his disappearance.

Castillo-Alvarez fled to his native Mexico as investigators began tracing the gang and drug activity back to him. He remained a fugitive for almost a decade.

Federal investigators monitored the whereabouts of Castillo-Alvarez though contact with Mexican authorities. Once the diplomatic channels could be navigated, the extradition process came together quickly in October 2006, when he was brought back to Spencer.

Courtney issued a ruling delaying sentencing on Feb. 14.

"The parties inform the court that, because of scheduling problems for the defendant's counsel, the sentencing for the defendant should be set for another date and time," he said, in his ruling.